SMOKING DENOUNCED.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1924, Page 4

SMOKING DENOUNCED.

A CLERGYMAN'S OUTBURST. SYDNEY, March 0. A well-known Brisbane Congregational minister, the Rev H. Gainsford, has satisfied himself that the tobacco habit is an unmitigated evil. In it lie sees the root of much degeneracy and wrong-doing, and a potent influence for harm to the general health of the community. In launching a determined attack upon the seductive weed from his pulpit, he declared that its serious results compellel him to emphasise the baneful habit of cigarette smoking among boys, youths, and young women. Medical science testified to the detrimental effect of cigarette smoking upon our youth. Of the thousands of candidates for the American Navy, 80 to 00 per cent failed to pass the medical test through the effect of cigarette smoking on the heart. For the army nine-tenths failed for the same reason. If this was the effect on our youths, what must it be upon our young women ? Experts declared that nicotine acts upon the nerve-cells first as a stimulant, and then as a depressant, and also “exercises a definite effect upon the spinal cord,” and interfered with the functions of the eye, heart, and kidneys. The cigarette habit interfered with the normal action of the brain, ns an organ of thought, impaired the memory, and lessened the power of concentration. Medieal experts further declared that a large amount of insanity among young men between the ages of Ml and was due to the cigarette habit. “Is cigarette smoking a moral elevation?” he asks. “Is it not rather a development of tile lower than of the higher nature? Crime statistics go to show that nearly all young criminals are cigarette smokers.” The testimony of degeneracy in youths caused by cigarette smoking was intensified in smoking girls. Could words be strong enough to condemn the insane craze that possessed so many of our young women to smoke cigarettes and drink wines and cocktails. Without a moment’s forethought they were cultivating a pernicious habit to the detriment of those finer instincts that should characterise noble womanhood.